Hofstra Cultural Center

The Hofstra Cultural Center (HCC) is an internationally renowned organization that includes a conference and symposium component, signature speakers, a music and theater component, and the publication of the proceedings of its conferences and symposia. The activities of the Hofstra Cultural Center augment the offerings of the academic departments of the University. The conference and symposium component develops educational programs related to the cultural and interdisciplinary experience of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and international scholars. The HCC plans and coordinates conferences/symposia in the humanities, business, law, and the sciences to promote the University as an international arena of scholarly thought and to foster Long Island as a cultural entity. It has sponsored more than 200 conferences and has won international recognition for its Women’s Writers Conferences and for its Presidential Conference Series, which started in 1982 with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Centennial Conference and continued thereafter with conferences that explored each American presidency since FDR, with the most recent conference on Barack Obama, held in April 2023.

In addition, the Hofstra Cultural Center has planned and coordinated conferences/symposia focused on popular culture, literary figures, gender studies, historical anniversaries, and current events. Its signature speaker series has included luminaries such as astronaut Dr. Mae Jamison; American historians Blanche Wiesen Cook and Douglas Brinkley; former White House speechwriter and journalist David J. Frum; political pundits Edward J. Rollins, Howard Dean, Ari Fleischer, and Phil Schiliro; authors and journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones, Naomi Klein, Jonah Goldberg, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Charles M. Blow; activist The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II; choreographer Twyla Tharp; producer, screenwriter, and Hofstra alumnus Francis Ford Coppola ’60; television writer and Hofstra alumnus Phil Rosenthal ’81; former U.S. Poet Laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Levine and Natasha Trethewey; Pulitzer Prize winners Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, and Colson Whitehead; and, most recently, scholars and authors Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, and Isabel Wilkerson.

The music/theater component of the Hofstra Cultural Center includes the Joseph G. Astman Cultural Events, which has featured  performances by The Bronx Opera Company, the Taiko Masala Drum Ensemble, South African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Saint Kabir’s Musical Word sung from Sikh Sacred Scripture with Prahlad Tipanya (India), the Hevreh Ensemble with Native American flute maker Daniel Bigay, Forces of Nature, and Sweet Honey in the Rock. Dramatic performances have included Actually; Down the Rabbit Hole; Call Mr. Robeson; The Vagina Monologues; The Defamation Experience – When Race, Class, Religion and Gender Collide; and Black Angels Over Tuskegee.

Contact: Hofstra Cultural Center
Room 108 Monroe Lecture Center, South Campus
516-463-5669
hofstra.edu/culture
hofculctr@hofstra.edu
facebook.com/hofculctr
Twitter : @hofculctr